Attack of the “experts”
Last week, I was listening to Leonard Lopate interview Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point) about his latest book. Gladwell was talking about having had lunch with a ketchup expert (for a New Yorker article he had written titled The Ketchup Conundrum). Lopate immediately blurted “there’s a ketchup expert?” Which got me thinking:
1 What defines an expert?
It’s not who you know, but what you know.
According to the Free Online Dictionary, an expert is:
Noun: A person with a high degree of skill in or knowledge of a certain subject.
Adjective: Having, involving, or demonstrating great skill, dexterity, or knowledge as the result of experience or training.
Wikipedia has a more colorful narrative (edited):
An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study. An expert can be, by virtue of training, education, profession, publication or experience, believed to have special knowledge of a subject beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may officially (and legally) rely upon the individual’s opinion.
2 What skills and experience must one possess to be considered an expert?
The Harvard Business Review tells all.
Making of an Expert (WORD doc, first entry, or PDF, 4th entry, for download)
Discover the Anatomy of an Expert
3 Is the term “expert” used too liberally?
NPR.org asks On the Internet, Is Everyone an Expert?
4 Who is promoting the everyone-can-be-an-expert myth?
Voila! There are thousands of well-intentioned articles about developing your inner expert.
5 Who is exploiting the myth?
Stephen Colbert on Be an Expert on Anything
There’s the classic line, “everyone’s a comedian.” Can we adopt the same sarcastic tone for “everyone’s an expert?” Draw your own conclusions.
October 27th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Well, back in the day an expert would have been someone with the appropriate “background” — education/training and experience, with a certain track record of being right at least 50% of the time, and respect from peers (even if they disagreed with you). The problem today, I believe, is that most cannot differentiate between an expert and a pundit. Part of this is due to the non-stop, 24/7 news (i.e., infotainment) cycle that introduces people as “experts” in their fields and, to some degree, the information exchange on the Internet. The other problem is self-promotion. It would seem that everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame (or, at the very least, face time).